climate protester who was spared prison after smashing the windows of Barclays Bank and caused £100,000 in damage, said she was trying to send a “message of love” to the banking industry.
Speaking from a pink lectern outside Southwark Crown Courtwhere Judge David Milne KC gave her a seven-month suspended sentence, Zoe Cohen, 52, said she has tried 40 years of lawful action to no avail.
She was convicted along with five other women after being convicted of criminal damage for smashing the bank’s windows London headquarters on April 7 last year.
During the verdict, Judge Milne called the protest at Barclays a “stunt” and a “gimmick” and said smashing their windows will not stop climate change.
Cohen told a crowd of dozens of supporters: “He said in his remarks, just before he gave us our verdict, that we are actually right that the scientific consensus agrees that climate change is real and that action is really needed.
“That relieved my heart for a moment. So he, in this crazy world of judicial double standards, agrees that we need desperate action, but called our action a stunt and a gimmick in the same breath.
“When I testified, I explained that for 40 years I have taken legal action to get things done and it doesn’t make any difference.
“That’s why I resorted to what I did, to send a love message to Barclays, the entire banking industry, that this political economy needs to change, it’s driving us off a cliff. We all know that.”
In court, Cohen, who had represented herself, took issue with the probation officer’s comments calling her a climate protester and instead described herself as a “climate advocate”.
Her co-defendant Sophie Cowen, 32, told the PA news agency that she feels beholden to a higher law and was willing to go to jail.
She said: “We need to look and step outside of our roles and our commitments to our job, whether you’re the banker or the judge, and commit to being human. I think we’ve talked about that message over and over.
“He said we’re following the law. Well, there is actually a higher law, there is a greater law.
“The universal law is that everything must live and survive, that is actually the law that I have to abide by.
“The most powerful thing we have is just speaking the truth, heart and love.
“I was ready for them to give us everything, I was really ready to go to jail, I had, you know, kind of gotten good with it in my head.
“Because I get so much strength from just knowing and feeling that this is the work we have to do and the work we have to keep doing.
“And that is much stronger than anything they could have given us.”